While I sympathize with the Doctor in this article, who diagnosed himself with a case of "Wiitis" after suffering from pain related to long hours of playing with his new Wii, I find myself a bit frustrated with the tone of the article. It's subtle, certainly not hostile towards the tendency of this new system to work your muscles unexpectedly. But where, I ask, is the outpouring of support towards this wonderful development. Imagine, a video game that keeps you fit. Nay, an entire system!

DDR certainly was groundbreaking in creating a way to motivate certain...unmotivateables to moving around, developing real skill, real reflexes. What's surprising is that, in next gen systems, Nintendo was the only company to follow suit and take it up a notch, revolutionizing on the magic of kinetic energy. Finding increased graphical power and larger gaming worlds being, ultimately, too predictable, I got bored with the Xbox 360 we bought this christmas quickly, and loudly wondered why I layed down $400 (for the system alone) for games that are just slightly more aesthetically pleasing than the ones I used with the original Xbox, and certainly not more playable. The Wii we bought this weekend has been a nice reprieve from this, though, like the sore Doctor Bonis, I am still recovering from a few hours of rigorous boxing and tennis on Thursday. My recommendation: Buy a Wii. Celebrate it's revolutionary thinking! It's healthfulness! It's price tag (the cheapest of the three next gens, by far)! But stretch first.



Speaking of celebration where celebration's due, anyone seen that clip of Ernie "E.J." Sierra on the "So, you think you can Dance" auditions? Here's the deal: This guy, an overweight hairstylist who's very, well, gay, is up for his audition. Starts out on this way feminine-- and yes, a little too feminine for my tastes-- dance routine that starts out with sort of a touching swiping his hands over himself rather suggestives, but ends with fucking fantastic ballet, I mean, ballet that, really, you do not expect a guy like this to be able to do-- this kind of stuff would be a challenge for a 98 pound girl, but this guy lifts himself five feet off the stage one of those acrobatic split-jump thingies at at least 350 pounds. Now, you know the network let him into the auditions for a funny "look at the acrobatic fat guy" clip, but he really wins the audience over, and why shouldn't he? He finishes to thunderous applause which one of the dickhead judges, Nigel "I'm a clone of Simon from American Idol" Lythgoe quickly interrupts, explaining, quite harshly, to E.J., that "they are applauding you because you are fat." He goes on about how he's offended over this "patrozing" applause, and is just, completely awful about it, like he and all the other snide reality TV roaches are commisioned-based salesmen with a briefcase full of bastard. The other two judges really don't play much of a good cop to his bad, giving him their version of constructive criticism? Where's the appropriate reaction of "My god, how do you do that?" Where's the obvious point that if this guy has trained as much for this show as he obviously has, there's no way that his weight problem could be based on common lethargy, and must be a symptom of a larger health problem?

My guess is on the Ernie Sierra fan sites that I'm hoping will be springing up any day now, much as they did for the good natured William Hung-- and why did people love him? Certainly not because of any genuine talent, and probably not even as much about his willingness to put himself out there, for better or for worse. More, I'm thinking, that as much as America has a love/hate relationship with the asshole judges who say what we're all thinking, there's a growing amount of us who don't want to give in to the fad of overblown bullies, who don't want to see ridiculous cruelty as the latest form of entertainment. William Hung was the starkest contrast possible to Simon Cowell-- our love for one was just the inverse of our hatred for the other.

It should happen more often that it does, but 200,000 sold albums later, Hung could tell you that it pays to be the good guy in a world of bad ones, sometimes.


By the way, don't think I fucking watch "So, you think you can Dance". I saw a recap on E's "The Soup". I owe you more on my why-reality-TV-shows-on-Fox-are-ruining-life-as-we-know-it-(R.I.P. Drive) rant at some point.


On with it.